


no lie in his fire

by Nickety



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29125206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nickety/pseuds/Nickety
Summary: Original drabble written for 2018 Jonsa Drabblefest.Nameless orphan to indentured battlemage, Jon Snow knew better than to ever cast eyes above his station. No pretty face was worth losing his heart when his head would be quick to follow. What he didn't count on was a princess as unexpectedly brave in love as she was in peril.A series of short stories set in a non-descript high fantasy magicky setting.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47





	1. that old spark

**Author's Note:**

> I will probably never actually write a whole thing for this, just putting it out there. I'll only reposting this because I want to write a second part.

His heart in his throat, Jon raced along the edge of the chamber, searching desperately for a clear space not covered in rubble from the collapsing ceiling. Circling around the ceremonial foundation meant to originally serve as their meeting point before everything fell into complete chaos, his panic only grew as he failed to spot a familiar head of auburn hair. 

A flash of movement from the corner of his eye and he whipped his glaive around to aim a fireball at the wraith attempting to overtake him. The creature let out a horrifying shriek before disappearing. Absurdly enough, he found time to spare a derisive snort. Shadow assassins. The Lannisters were as uncreative as they were underhanded. 

“Jon, duck!” came his salvation as he obeyed, narrowly avoiding the mace about to smash in his head. Vines sprang from the cracked floor to wrap around the offending thug’s ankles, allowing Jon to make an escaping leap over a pillar to join his savior. Sansa’s eyes were large and bright, fingertips still sparking with the borrowed magic. Old Olenna’s brief lesson in druidcraft had come in handy afterall. 

Later, this was the moment Jon would pinpoint that he had fallen in love. Here and now, it was all he could do not to kiss her, struggling to remember his place. _We need to get out of here, Princess_ , he urged, roughly swiping his fingers through the bleeding gash on his forehead to scrawl the best teleportation sigil he could manage on the stone wall behind them. 

The last thing he felt before the magic enveloped them was Sansa’s arms wrapping around him and her lips finding his. 


	2. born lucky/lucky to be born

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What was that I said about not wanting to write a bunch of backstory? Yeah, I remember.

Some would say that Jon had been born lucky, if only for the magic singing in his veins, but what good was magic if it got him nowhere with no name, no family, no legacy to speak of? Even his spark was considered unlucky at best, accursed at its worst, as baffling as it was for fire to be his element when he was born in the dead of winter, during the longest and darkest night of the year. 

An unnamed, fevered, Northern-featured girl had appeared that night on the steps to the Temple of the Most Devout, heavy in labor, delivering a healthy new life at the cost of her own. She survived just long enough to give him a name, Jon, the sisters adding “Snow” for the raging blizzard that prevented a healer or midwife from being summoned. The girl’s name was either lost in the shuffle or just never known, the last rites thereafter anonymous and perfunctory, her newborn shunted off to an orphanage before they even finished. 

His caretakers were relieved to find him a quiet, easy babe. Until the day his blankets mysteriously began to singe. He was a calm, obedient toddler, no disruption found until he came down with a horrible fever and scorch marks were found around his sickbed. He grew into a solitary, unobtrusive child, until the day an older boy’s roughhousing dislocated his shoulder, and his panic and pain set fire to the bully’s clothing. 

While the North mainly served itself autonomously outside warfare and taxes, orphanages were imperially controlled, all the better to snatch up children with any hint of magic or dragon blood. As an imperial ward, there was little preamble about Jon’s transfer into the custody of the nearest mage tower, and from there forward he belonged not to himself, but the Empire. 

Raised a battlemage, a living weapon, he was lucky enough that his spark kept him from being shipped off to Essos and the endless battlefield that was Valyrian conquest. What use would he be, after all, on the front lines where armies were commanded from dragonback and bloodlines were bred specifically for fire magic? Better he be a prize and a novelty for the Westerosi towers, his power and potential bound tightly under the rigid control of the Adepts, harnessed and shaped under their demanding tutelage.

Every moment Jon Snow breathed, his magic was growing and changing, stirring restlessly beneath his skin every waking second. Of course he would obey, everything he’d ever known dedicated to keeping caged the spark turned hungry, burning flame. Obey through every grueling exercise and test, practice and practice under his fingers blistered and his magic ran dry, because the magic writhed beneath his skin like a living, ravenous thing. He obeyed because the first and last time he hesitated had been disastrous. 

Deployed to the Wall to turn the tide on a wilding incursion, the reality of turning his flame on living people made him hesitate, and that hesitation wasn’t reciprocated on the other side, black brothers falling all around him in a massive attack of northern ice magic. He reacted instead of obeying, and the fearful inferno he released that day would haunt him until the end of his days. 

Sent back to the capital and kept on an even shorter leash for his failure, it was purely for the aesthetic and prestige that he was paraded out to serve in the honor guard escorting the King in the North’s entourage to the Red Keep. Jon obeyed, polishing and affixing his armor, marching stalwart and silent among the other soldiers and ignoring the pompous prattling from the Grand Adept serving as his taskmaster.

Jon knew his place, knew his training, keeping his eyes on the ground until he was forced to do otherwise. The Crownsguard had grown lazy enough in their formation to require course correction before they all stumbled and fell in their obnoxiously ostentatious armor. 

As he glared, huffed, and righted himself after being bumped by the idiots beside him (they were the royal guard of a Baratheon Archon holding his position by virtue of his Targaryen blood, why were they wearing those garish lion helms?), he caught his first glimpse of her, curt and fleeting as it was. 

She was strikingly beautiful, lithe and graceful as a swan, auburn tresses falling like liquid fire. She stole his breath, shook something deep inside him, but he turned his mind firmly back to his duty. The procession continued, but he never truly resettled, a spike of unease shooting through him as crimson cloaks and snarling golden helms began to close ranks. 

The turn came quickly. Crownsguard turned on Winterguard, outnumbering the northern retinue three times over. The Grand Adept barked orders at Jon, urging him to join the fray,  _ on the wrong side _ .

It seemed that Pycelle, treacherous worm, had forgotten a few key facts, specifically that Jon Snow had winter in his blood and fire at his core. It was not the worm, but the wyrm, who brought fire to heel, and Jon’s flame burned bright and fierce. Fire obeyed dragons. Fire would only burn a lion, not bend for him- especially a lion pretending to be a stag playing at being a dragon. And Jon had been a diligent student, he knew his histories well. The North had only submitted once in millenia, kneeling to dragons and dragons alone. While the rest of Westeros bent the knee to the stag by right of dragon blood and war-might, the quiet wolf did so out of friendship and fraternity. 

The North was doggedly loyal, never wavering. Warring against an unworthy dragon to replace him with another of the same blood hardly counted as betrayal when all knew Aerys II was a mad butcher undeserving of his Archonship. The Emperor had certainly agreed, so long as Baratheon’s fealty remained true. The North was loyal to the dragon, the wolf was loyal to the stag, and a peace retinue under imperial guest-right was being slaughtered before his eyes.

When Jon made his decision, it was the easiest he ever made. 

The ice in his veins remained strong, even as his rage grew into something feral and potent, swelling with alarming quickness. He found it centering on the collar hidden beneath his armor, layered with spell upon spell, of both protection and restraint. His blood roared in his ears, his heart pounding louder than an kettledrum, and one by one, the enchantments began to pop and burst. His helm and gorget cracked and clattered uselessly to the ground, exposing the red-hot metal resting snug around his throat. Pauldron, vambraces, and gauntlets were all quick to follow, all heavy and unwieldy, all equally bespelled. 

His flame sparked and grew, alighting his hands, his arms, the pupils of his eyes. Steam rose from his skin, and finally,  _ finally! _ liquid metal sluggishly melted away from his neck under the molten force of his magic. Left behind was a thick band of finely worked leather, runed and snug beneath his larynx. The keystone to the whole contraption, but hardly worth his attention as he prepared to unleash an inferno on every flash of crimson and gold in his periphery. 

It was an echoing roar of defiance that stayed his hand, if only for a moment, King Eddard wielded the legendary Ice with a wolfish ferocity, but he greatly outmanned and quick to lose any ground he gained. Their eyes met and connected, like recognizing like as Eddard took in long, lean features and dark winter eyes. Recognizing a fellow son of the North, the flagging king took a chance and trusted. 

“Protect your princess! Go!”

His teleportation spells were rusty but functional, his memories thereafter a whirlwind as he wrapped himself protectively around the princess, burned a sigil into the nearest stone, and started a journey there was no coming back from. 

Over time, reluctant companions became friends and then lovers. Jon Snow proved to be very lucky indeed- not for the magic in his blood, but for the place he somehow, someway, had etched into the heart of a princess. 


End file.
